


And Then There Were Six

by Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Drug Use, Foreign Language, It Gets Better, Russian, Suicide, au-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-23 20:04:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18709057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism/pseuds/Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism
Summary: Dmitri never expected to see his brother where he was.





	And Then There Were Six

**Author's Note:**

> This was actually meant to be a series but then I completely forgot about it, so...

“Smerdyakov! Pryti bystro!” came the voice. Urgent. Curt. Short. Dmitri had studied speech patterns for years, of course he knew the tone. Bad news for someone. Something had happened. If he went now, he knew he wouldn’t be the same person he had been. 

But then, when was he ever? He’d find out eventually. Why not now?

Running, he rounded the corner. The Ivan looked up at him. That, in itself, was worrying. The Ivan had no interest in Spider-Man, and thus, no interest in Dmitri. The fact he’d bothered to involve himself, known just when Dmitri would come, spoke volumes. 

The Ivan stared, blinked twice and moved aside. 

At first, Dmitri didn’t recognise the body. Or rather, he did - he looked at it and recognised the suit. The red, black and blue. For that one bizarre moment, he rejoiced at finally having Spider-Man in his clutches. But then he looked up at the head. The jawline protruding through the mask, the stiff hairs poking through the bottom, the… the neat hole through the head, and the gun in the hand. 

Recoiling, he cautiously inched his hand towards the mask and slowly pulled it off. The faced of his brother stared back, open-mouthed in fleeting, glassy-eyed agony. Alive? Yes, alive. Was that thumping noise a pulse or some late-night rave? Was that cool rush of air a new breath or his last? Was his brother alive? Was he alive? Was he…

“Sergei?” he whispered shortly. Everything about the man ran through his head in seconds; the time he’d first beaten Dmitri, the day they left for America, the day he had told Sergei of the Spider-Man, the greatest quarry in the world. Kraven and Chameleon. Dead now. For a moment, he acknowledged that these were the closest his little impersonations would ever get to emotion.

“Samoubiystvo, da?” he asked. He knew there were plenty of people who would be happy for everyone to think the mighty Sergei Kravenoff had just gotten drunk, given in and put a bullet through his brain. He needed to know they were right to assume. Or wrong to frame. They were as bad as each other. 

“Ya ne znayu,” the Ivan replied, impassively as Dmitri. Always so clueless, Dmitri thought. “Eto vyglyadit kak eto.” And Dmitri knew the decision had already been made. Yes. It had been. It made no difference in any case.

“Govoryat on poymal Chelovek-Pauk. Spiderman. Ubil yego,” the Ivan ventured. Dmitri was glad to know that if anyone did it, Sergei had. It should have been one of the two of them. Now, Dmitri was free to.. what? Would he rob banks now Spiderman was dead? Would Kraven have wanted that?

“On nosil kostyum,” Dmitri murmured. A part of him recoiled at that thought. Sergei, fighting crime? Sergei, saving lives? Sergei, being Spiderman? Had he really been so self-superior? “On srazhalsya prestupleniye?”

“Da. On srazhalysa prestupleniye. A takzhe, Pauk-Chelovek vyzhil tem ne meniye.”

Oh.

Spider-Man. Defender of justice. Littlest Avenger. Annoying alive, as of now. Was or was his job not to defend people? To stop death? Or did scum like Sergei not matter? Did he not care about people like Sergei, so long as they only killed themselves?

“On mog by ostanovit eto,” he hissed, partly to the Ivan, partly to Sergei partly to himself, and maybe partly to whatever cruel being was left at the scene he’d concocted. But not to Spiderman. Spiderman wouldn’t listen. He didn’t stop Sergei. He wouldn’t stop Dmitri.

Apprehensively, the Ivan tossed Dmitri a jar. Chipped and grubby, but full. “Oni nazyvayut eto Rentgeniya Sulfid v laboratorii. Oni nazyvayut eto Litso-Plavil’nyy gde-libo yeshche,” he explained. “Ty govorish ty khochesh litso to yest maska? Ne stesnyaytes sdelay glotok.”

Several cogs began turning very quickly in Dmitri’s mind. If he killed Spider-Man, Dmitri would be finishing what Sergei started. Good. If he took the bottle, he would be able to disguise himself as anyone. Good. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t bad. The cogs had barely started turning before they stopped, and Dmitri was left with a plan, a retreating Ivan and an empty bottle. 

That stuff burned. Not just his throat, but him. Limbs convulsed and contorted. Face stretched in a million different ways with no real purpose. A thousand agonies pricked him constantly. Too much pain to even scream.

It was an hour before he realised his face was now that of an Austrian P.E. teacher and chuckled lowly.


End file.
